


I Would Teach My Feet To Fly

by 1000Needles



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 07:17:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8835343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000Needles/pseuds/1000Needles
Summary: When Balthier meets Basch fon Ronsenburg in the Barheim Passage, he isn't sure what to make of him. As the months go on, distrust turns to companionship, and deepens into something more intimate. More poetic than explicit (until the end).
This story was originally published April 10, 2007, in LiveJournal's ffxii-fic community. Spoilers through Jahara.





	

The air in the Barheim Passage was fetid and stale, and Balthier found himself wondering more than once if sewer-gas might kill the party off before the mimics could. He urged his companions forward, one step ahead of that concern as well as the rapidly failing overhead lights. Balthier was surprised that the erstwhile Captain had no difficulty keeping up; if he did, he didn't show it. Captain Basch had been ill-treated, those years in the Nalbina dungeons. Even in the dim light, Balthier could clearly make out the lash marks, fresh crossed over faded. Yet he charged ahead of the group without hesitation. Balthier felt a grudging admiration for the man. Of course, he reminded himself, the Captain had never been accused of lacking courage.

After a long haul deeper into the mines—surely the ground would begin sloping up again soon, Balthier thought—they took a halt while Basch efficiently stripped an ancient corpse of its armor and weapons. Clothed, his long hair now pulled back, he hefted a sword experimentally and executed a swift series of movements.

"Nice moves there, Captain," Balthier said, in a tone which might have been either mocking or sincere. He himself was not sure which. He stood with his arms folded over his chest, watching.

 

* * * * *

 

The man's story was absurd, of course—an evil twin? As if he'd chosen the most hackneyed excuse he could imagine. But Judge-Magister Gabranth's face leapt immediately into Balthier's mind; and now that it had been suggested, he could see that under the beard and the filth and the bruises, they were indeed identical. The pieces fit.

When they finally stumbled out into the sunlight, Basch said fervently, "To think Dalmascan air could taste so sweet!" Strange choice of words for a patriot, Balthier reflected. Although attempting to parse a soldier's words might well be an exercise in futility.

With Rabanastre still far to the south, the party agreed to strike off north, to the river, and camp for the night. After the musty chilled air of the Passage, the desert was a shock of contrast: vivid blue sky and gritty hot dust everywhere, in their eyes, their mouths, the sweat-soaked grips of their weapons. Balthier was too tired to care. It seemed to him they'd been walking for days, but the sun showed no intention of setting. It could have risen and fallen more than once while they were underground, for all he knew. He was too much a creature of the city to expect any primitive intuition from himself.

In fact, it was about that time that the canyon shadows began to lengthen, and they came down into the valley through which flowed the Nebra.

 

* * * * *

 

Vaan, street rat that he was, had some skill at hacking away with smallswords and daggers, but no experience of archery. Fran took him out into the Estersand to practice on wolves and bring down a cockatrice for dinner. Balthier could hear them shouting from where he stood at the edge of the river, their voices bouncing eerily back from the canyon walls, now purplish with dusk.

He stared into the water and debated whether the pleasure of being clean would be worth the effort involved in stripping out of his elaborate, now filthy, Archadian costume, only to have to put it back on again. Balthier found himself very rarely in a situation in which one could not simply draw a bath and have one's clothes sent to be cleaned. In any case, with what would he dry himself? His elegant tanned-hide pants? He wished wistfully for the Strahl.

Raising his head, he saw Basch had no such compunctions; he'd already disrobed down to his short trews and was splashing water over his head. Though the light was growing faint, it was still better than it had been in Barheim, and Balthier's throat tightened as he said without forethought, "By the Occuria, man, you need a healer."

Basch shrugged as if even that small gesture hurt him. There were open abrasions over his shoulders that hadn't been visible when his hair was loose. His gloves were off and Balthier could see that his wrists were rubbed cruelly raw. And his ribs, more prominent than those on a wolf wandering the streets of Old Archades—it was indecent, Balthier thought in disgust. To treat another hume this way! To treat one's brother, one's own twin— He shook his head and went for help.

The healing hut was occupied, the villagers explained, but there was an empty hut by the water to which they could take the wounded man. "There is no need," Basch said, but that was the only protest he made; he was already beginning to sag as the day's march caught up with him. He lowered himself into a seated position on the cot with such a look of weariness that Balthier realized it might have been his first moment of rest in—years? The idea was too horrifying to contemplate.

Standing behind him, Balthier took the man's wet tresses into his hands, twisted them into a knot at the back of his head. He thanked the gods that the lantern overhead wasn't any brighter; the damage was unbearable to behold. Fran would surely be back soon, but Balthier had clever hands himself and the wounds needed immediate dressing. The water of the Nebra had looked clean, but one never knew what ill magicks might have found their way into the current.

"I am sorry," Basch said, his head bent as Balthier took a potion-soaked cloth gingerly to the back of his neck. "I did not wish to be a burden upon you."

"By no means," Balthier said. His lips were tight. He unrolled a length of bandage. "Your sword-arm through the Barheim Passage was of far greater value than a few moments of my time, Captain."

"Captain," the other man repeated. He flinched at the application of potion to his shoulders, then laughed. "Is that meant to mock?"

"No," Balthier said, and felt his face flame as he remembered how he'd used the appellation so sarcastically back in the Passage. You, Balthier, are a spoiled brat, he thought. "'Tis habit, I suppose. The famous Captain fon Ronsenburg. I apologize."

"Apologies are unnecessary. I was merely curious." He leaned further forward as Balthier prompted him with a gentle touch, smoothing potion onto the scars and lesions on his lower back. "But I do prefer that you call me Basch."

"Basch, then." Balthier fixed the last bandage on Basch's back and circled to the front, carefully taking his forearms; Basch lifted his wrists in acquiescence. The night air was dry and warm and starlight pricked through the doorway. The river licked at the shore with a arrhythmic cadence—wind, fish splashing in the shallows. Balthier finished wrapping Basch's wrists. He held them for a beat before letting go. His vocabulary here was lacking. He wanted to say something, some word of kindness, some— but at least the man's injuries had been attended to.

"Get some rest, Basch," he said.

 

* * * * *

 

It was many months later when they stood together again on the banks of the Sogoht in Jahara. Ashe and the others were inside with the great-chief; Basch and Balthier had taken the opportunity to wash after the long march across the Ozmone Plains. Better equipped now, Balthier folded his clothes upon a rock still warm from the sun and laid a clean linen on top for drying after his bath. Some bath, he thought. A far cry from the civilized version. Still, if he'd learned anything on this journey, it was not to begrudge the simple pleasures.

The Sogoht's cold water was marvelously refreshing after the long slog across the Plains. Balthier bent his knees and submerged himself backwards into the fast-rushing river, sputtering to the surface again with the blood singing joyfully in his veins. He flashed a broad grin at Basch.

"A pleasant change after eating road-dust for weeks."

"Aye," Basch said. He rinsed his mouth and spat. "I can feel it all the way to my tonsils."

Balthier kept his face straight but realized he was beginning to blush. He ducked into the water, closed his eyes, floated mid-stream while the current parted around him in a swirl of minuscule bubbles. Unbidden, the vision of the soldier rose upon the screen of his eyelids: golden hair, now shorn to just above his shoulder-blades; golden skin on a body that was still too thin yet finely accented with curves of muscle.

He lifted himself to his feet, his face composed, and climbed up onto the bank, wrapped himself round with the linen.

"I suppose we should return to the Lady Ashe," he said. The sound of drums floated from the Garif tents just over the hill; plumes of dark smoke waved in the cooling air.

Basch laughed and shook himself dry like a wolf. "I believe she has no need of us for the time being, my friend. She's in her element; she and that chief will talk about nethecite to her heart's content. And Fran will look after the other two, will she not?"

"She will," Balthier admitted. "She's taken rather a liking to the girl."

"Then I propose we spend an evening away from the company of women and children." Basch slipped into his sandals, gave his hair one final shake. "I have a bottle of fine Bhujerban madhu in my tent."

"A laudable plan," Balthier said. "I accept."

He waited until Basch turned his back to walk away before he disentangled himself from the linen and pulled on his trousers. He had not been able to compose himself entirely.

 

* * * * *

 

Shortly thereafter Balthier found himself sprawled on the ground outside Basch's tent, chewing the last delicious shreds of roast Ozmone hare from a skewer, utterly heedless of the grass stains on his shirt and more comfortable than he'd been in a long time. Looking across the fire at the once-Captain, he was amused to see that the other man had relaxed his usual posture: propped on one elbow, he sucked the marrow from a bone and tossed it into the flames.

"A toast," Basch said. "To the entirely absurd friendship between a Dalmascan knight and an Archadian pirate."

"May it flourish," Balthier replied. They clinked glasses of madhu.

In the rosy flush of conversation which that worthy liquor brings, as the stars spiked brighter in the desert sky, they traded stories of their lives: Balthier's spent ever on the run since he'd abandoned his place in Archades as a precocious Judge Magister, Basch's a long thread of military servitude to Dalmascan royalty after fleeing his ravaged homeland of Landis so many years before. Balthier knew every port, every Aerodrome on three continents, told tales of smoky Rozarrian taverns, of pirate-dens where an ill-advised word might mean death. Basch had not traveled much further than Nalbina since he'd left Landis. He spoke of the insidious skein of court politics, the viciousness of an unending war.

"Sometimes I would that I had your wings to fly," he said.

"They are yours if ever you wish them."

The two men were silent. The fire before them snapped, throwing sparks into the warm air; in the distance the Garif chanted.

"We are men of the world, you and I—" Balthier began.

"Aye," said Basch, and leaned forward to slip his hand behind Balthier's neck. At the touch of those callused fingers Balthier's blood thrummed in his throat and he angled his face up to catch Basch's lips. Basch laughed, sounding bemused and breathless all at once.

"A kiss," he said. "I must confess I have little experience with such."

"Soldiers prefer it rather more roughly, I have heard."

Basch ran his fingers through Balthier's close-cropped hair and kissed him back. "I am afraid I do a grave disservice to my profession by enjoying so greatly the taste of your mouth."

"I do not deny that I myself have a tendency towards roughness," Balthier said, and tipped the other man backwards with a quick thrust. Basch's eyes widened in surprise and— was it pleasure? He hooked his ankles around Balthier's and flipped him easily.

"Come now," he said with a laugh. "I am trained for such sport, you know."

"As am I, friend." Balthier twisted out from under and pinned him. They both paused a moment, panting and grinning, and Balthier remembered those practices so long ago with Judge Gabranth, who never smiled; how odd to have his twin now beneath his grasp. Truly Basch was entirely dissimilar; there was the scar slashed across his face, of course, but under the scar his eyes were frank and friendly and seemingly untouched by all he'd suffered. Odd indeed.

Basch toppled Balthier from his body and sat up straight to pull his shirt over his head. Balthier winced at the expanse of scarred skin; he reflected that he would not have thought he could see such beauty in such damage. Basch lifted an eyebrow.

"You are appalled, are you?"

"No." He reached out to stroke the other's shoulder. "But I would kill that whoreson."

Basch pushed him to the ground. "Child," he said, chuckling, unbuckling Balthier's vest and sliding it off his arms. "Not a mark on you."

"I wear my scars on the inside," Balthier said wryly. He stopped talking when Basch undid his breeches and reached for his prick; the first liquid lick nearly made him moan. "Surely— you did not— learn that in the Guard," he gasped, as the man expertly took him to the root. Basch's tongue flickered in the back of his throat as his lips slipped up the shaft again; he gave suck to the head and smiled.

"Ivalice is a wide and mysterious world, is it not, young Balthier?"

Balthier snorted and shoved him off. "Young, my arse." They grappled; Basch won, his elbows on Balthier's bare chest.

"Your arse indeed. Do you prefer ether or elixir?" Balthier was uncharacteristically wordless; a slow smile spread across Basch's features. "Elixir, I think." Balthier found himself on all fours, then, marveling at Basch's easy dexterity; the man handled him as if he were sculpting clay. He felt fingers slick with ointment slide down his cleft and could not help but release a long-held sigh.

"This is not your first time, I think?" Basch asked, massaging with such skill that Balthier could have sworn he was floating.

"Hardly," he breathed. Then he was well and truly speared and as they rocked together there quickly and quicker he thought he had never flown quite so high as this. The rushing roar of the river, the beat of blood from his heart, the drums, the far voices lifted in song, all cascaded into a single pulse as the two men groaned together and eventually collapsed, spent, into a twist of limbs before the fire. Basch wrapped one arm around him lazily, kissed the tip of his ear.

"You could teach me to love roughness," he murmured.

"You could teach me to love gentleness," Balthier answered, softly, and leaned back into the warmth of the other's embrace.


End file.
